Chapter 1: Proposals

Evelyn Dupree walked down a corridor at Base 15, the secret military installation meant to create a special unit capable of fighting the horrors that had overrun the Earth on even footing. Her squad leader Elaine Caldwell, who was also her girlfriend and her Awakener, the person with the ability to rouse the latent supernatural powers inside Shard Bearers like Evelyn, had told her that the Professor wanted to propose something to her. Honestly, Evelyn still couldn't believe she had a girlfriend. Even more unbelievable was of course the fact that her girlfriend had a bigger dick than any of the men she'd ever been with.

Either way, the Professor wanted to ask her a favor and the last favor they'd done him had netted them all a tidy sum of Credits, so Evelyn would have been stupid not to at least hear him out.

Evelyn was shorter than average, with long dark red hair and a fairly attractive figure tempered by weeks of rigorous physical training to give her a muscle tone the old Evelyn would never have dreamed of. She used to be thin, almost willowy if it weren't for her curves, but now her abs had distinct definition and her arms and legs were more noticeably muscular than they had ever been, though Evelyn wasn't sure how much of that was due to the training and how much was due to the Soul Shard of the god Indra granting her a Strength stat of 40. A normal human had a Strength stat of 5, meaning she was currently eight times as strong as a human with her build should be and given that she had a couple hundred EXP left to allocate that number would only grow.

Almost more impressive was her Agility of 46 which, when combined with her Strength, allowed her to rush through the corridors at truly superhuman speeds, but Lieutenant General Hayworth had implemented a speed limit after the fourth time someone with superhuman speed had accidentally run face first into a wall and left a face-shaped dent in the concrete, so Evelyn was walking at a pace that would have seemed brisk to onlookers but that felt positively glacial to her.

Evelyn was not a patient person. That was the nice way of putting it. Less charitable people had called Evelyn 'bratty' or 'spoiled'. These days Evelyn agreed with them. She used to be a spoiled brat, a common affliction of upper middle class only-children with above-average grades and looks, but the end of the world had forced a big piece of humble pie down her throat. However, Evelyn now carefully cultivated a tiny bit of bratty behavior. During her first somewhat intimate encounter with Elaine she had learned a few rather shocking truths about herself and, to her surprise, the fact that she had been hopelessly turned on by a woman was the least shocking of the bunch. More shocking had been that she had been hopelessly turned on by being pushed into a corner and talked down to because she had done something amazingly stupid. The thought of Elaine looming over her and chastising her was one of her favorites when she desperately needed to get off these days, topped only by the memory of that time she'd begged Elaine to push her down and fuck her face.

She had come to terms with the fact that this was who she was and what she liked, so all she needed now was to find herself a way to get what she wanted. And that's why she kept a little bit of bratty behavior in a little box, carefully nurturing it with frustrated thoughts, so that she had a tantrum ready to go when she really wanted Elaine to push her down and punish her. Just the thought made her glad her uniform came with dark pants, so the dampness wouldn't be too visible.

Finally, finally she reached the Professor's office.

**

To the soldiers stationed at Base 15 Professor Stollos was an enigmatic figure and they barely knew anything about him. Jeanne the angel and Rachel the demon knew a bit more about him, but nobody there knew everything about him. And that suited Stollos Cypher just fine.

Stollos Cypher was the grandson of the Prince of Lies and had once been favored among Lucifer's offspring. Stollos was the child of a nephilim and a cambion, making him half human, quarter angel and quarter demon and the angel part came from one of the most powerful beings in all of creation, the Morning Star himself. He had nearly limitless potential, which was why Lucifer used to consider him the most promising candidate to inherit Hell in case of his premature passing. But because of his half human heritage Stollos had also been the subject of ceaseless mockery by the demons, which had driven him to show the demons that humans were better than them. The crown jewel of that research was a magical ritual known as the Oath of Crystal Tears, which would imbue a human with celestial powers, putting them instantly at the same level as some of the strongest angels and demons.

But instead of congratulating him on his research his grandfather had banished him from Hell because, as it turned out, Heaven and Hell didn't really like the idea of humans becoming any harder to control.

But oh how the tables had turned. The world had been overrun by horrors from Outside and suddenly they had welcomed Stollos back with open arms and given him a prestigious position where he could do whatever it took to strengthen humanity to fight back against the monsters.

He still felt pretty smug about that. Even funnier to him was that they had tried their hardest not to tell the humans of these differences in opinion, as if to try and paint themselves as the good guys.

Either way, these days Stollos was less interested in the Oath of Crystal Tears. It was amazingly powerful, certainly, but it also had a roughly 83% chance of turning the subject into a slavering monster driven only by rage and envy. By contrast, his new system of Awakeners and Shard Bearers had, to his knowledge, no chance at all of ruining the subjects and, even better, actually enhanced the chance for the Oath to succeed. One of his subjects was currently at 99.99% likelihood of success and he was going to approach her with the proposal soon enough.

But for today he had scheduled a meeting with Private Dupree. The young woman had recently unlocked a skill called Akashic Knowledge and he had high hopes for the kind of information it could provide. If the skill worked the way its description suggested it did it might let him examine samples in detail that otherwise deflected all attempts at analysis, like the fascinating research specimen Sergeant Caldwell had provided him. Of course, his true goal of testing perception-enhancing abilities was slightly more ambitious.

He was pulled out of his musings by a polite knock on his door and he asked the person on the other side to come in. Sure enough, it was Private Dupree.

“Elaine told me you wanted to speak to me, Professor?”, she said.

“Indeed”, he said. “I have a proposal you might be interested in.”

“I'm all ears”, she said.

He could tell she was impatient to hear it. Private Dupree always seemed a little impatient, even compared to how impatient most humans were already. As much as he loved humans, their short lifespan made them so horribly hurried. Everything had to happen now and if not now then soon. Of course he was a hypocrite about that because even with all the time in the world he was still always driven by the desire to further his research.

Stollos was practically ageless but it wasn't entirely apparent from his looks. He was tall, thin and reedy, with a receding hairline and long silver hair, his face defined by sharp edges and frown lines. At a casual glance it was easy to look at him and see an aging researcher but looks were deceiving. The silver hair was no sign of age but was actually something he'd inherited from his grandfather Lucifer while the receding hairline was very much something he had his father's bad luck in the genetics department to thank for. The frown lines were rare for those with not entirely human blood but with all the frowning he'd done in his life they were unsurprising. And while his figure was in fact thin and reedy he could still bend steel beams with his bare hands.

“Well”, he said, “I would like you to purchase the Akashic Knowledge skill you unlocked during your last mission so that we can run a few tests on it. Of course, I won't keep you from your other duties and you will be compensated for it.”

Evelyn considered for a moment, so Stollos continued:

“You don't need to give me an answer right now. In fact, I don't want an answer right now. Instead I would suggest you speak to Private Samantha Cole. I previously approached her for something similar, so you can talk to her and see if this is something you wish to help me with.”

“I think I'll do just that, thank you”, she said. “Was there something else?”

“No, that was all”, he said. “Thank you for your time, Private.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

And just like that Stollos was back alone with his thoughts. Well, his thoughts and a constant stream of data to sift through as he monitored his test subjects.

**

Ophelia Devereux and Alexis Bigsby were currently on their way to speak with an angel.

The angel in question, Jeanne, known in life as either Jeanne d'Arc or Joan of Arc, depending on which side of the English Channel you were from, was the person in charge of Base 15's armory.

The two women had started off wielding a shotgun and a sniper rifle respectively but both of them had been somewhat disappointed with their guns lately. Alexis only used her shotgun in the rare instances when her light magic and her magical armor-piercing spear couldn't get the job done and Ophelia was very annoyed with the long reload times of her sniper rifle. She had thought that, as a vampire with superhuman speed and reflexes, reloading wouldn't be an issue but it was. If she flexed her super speed even just a little bit she risked breaking some of the weapon's delicate metal bits so she only ever got one shot off at the start of each engagement and that one shot wasn't worth the effort of carrying the bulky gun with her. Not that the weight bothered her but the gun was cumbersome, especially since her shadow magic got similar results without taking up any space.

Of course, guns weren't the topic they were discussing on the way. Talking about guns didn't make Alexis beet red. She loved tinkering, especially with the scifi gear the angels were providing them, but it wasn't the kind of love that made her blush and avoid eye contact. No, the reason for that was the proposal Ophelia had made.

Like Evelyn, both of them were Elaine's girlfriends and parts of her team, which meant they could grow stronger by raising their Bond Level with their Awakener. Ophelia, being a vampire, had a very special way to raise their Bond Level, namely by drinking Elaine's blood, the logic being that Elaine would only let her if she trusted her enough and the trust would in turn raise their Bond Level. She'd drunk from a cut on Elaine's finger with witnesses present and while they were all alone in her room. The next step would be for Ophelia to actually bite Elaine to get at her blood, but for now she needed a witness. Doing it without anyone else present would skip a step, so to speak, and Ophelia had no interest in letting any Bond Levels go to waste in her eagerness.

Or so she told Alexis. While she did honestly believe this, Ophelia had an ulterior motive. In this case her ulterior motive was less selfish than her stated one, though. Alexis was a lesbian and had been a virgin just days ago. She'd fallen for Elaine and hadn't cared all that much that her new girlfriend... came with the wrong equipment, but she was still a lesbian and was probably wondering how exactly sex with her preferred equipment differed from what she'd just experienced. So Ophelia had hatched a plan to raise her Bond Level by drinking Elaine's blood with Alexis as a witness and then maybe show the cute blonde a thing or two. Of course, it helped that Ophelia herself was really looking forward to the potential threesome. Hell, she'd even invite Evelyn to join them but Evelyn had asked them to give her some time before they suggested group activities.

Poor little confused “straight” girl, Ophelia thought.

Alexis and Ophelia made an odd pair. Alexis was thin and lithe, the cute blond girl-next-door type with nerd glasses (which she didn't actually need anymore these days) while Ophelia looked like the stereotypical “big tiddy goth gf”, with pale skin, long black hair and downright lethal curves. The irony was that Ophelia wasn't even into gothic music, she certainly didn't smoke and the pale skin was a side effect of her newfound and rather annoying aversion to sunlight. Ophelia's idea of fun was curling up on a couch with a good book or, more realistically, a fully charged e-reader. Well, either that or going on tinder dates, but between the end of the world and ending up in a relationship with a woman she was rapidly falling for (and her two other girlfriends) she wondered how she'd ever thought those were any fun. Then again, her and Elaine hadn't actually had sex yet. But at least Elaine had finally used that enormous thing between her legs to fuck Alexis senseless a few days ago so Ophelia was hoping she'd get some of that for herself soon.

**

Jeanne was currently busy on her CARD, her Communicative Augmented Reality Device, speaking to her direct subordinate, the Ophanim Prudence, who had taken over scouting duties for the surrounding area. Most of the angels were currently busy defending Heaven's borders, so only the two of them had been available to help out Base 15. There were many angels currently working on Earth, more than had ever been allowed before, but the overall number was still tiny.

Then again, Ophanim like Prudence and Cherubim like Jeanne herself were more than a match for entire human battalions and so even just a few of them were incredibly powerful allies to the humans. But Base 15 was a different matter entirely. These humans were coming along amazingly as the Professor's experiments had exceeded all expectations. Jeanne herself had taken one of the squads along for a mission and they had proven themselves to be more than competent. A few more skirmishes to gather the EXP they needed to level up and these humans could give even some of Heaven's elite units a run for their money. Which might end up becoming a problem if they ever got rid of the Outsiders, but Jeanne sincerely hoped that her superiors wouldn't do anything rash. But the Angel Lords were wise and only acted if they could reach a consensus, so she was sure they wouldn't do anything too bad. If some of the more militant Angel Lords like Gabriel or Raphael were to suggest more extreme solutions then some of the more merciful ones like Michael or her Lady Venus would rein them in.

For now, that wasn't something Jeanne had to worry about. The mere idea of being rid of the Outsiders was pure fantasy at this point, though according to Prudence the area surrounding Base 15 was completely free of their influence now. The first signs of Outsider presence now began in Waterport, New York. Soon enough they would need to go farther and farther afield to find enemies to fight, and then soon after that they would be in a position to start liberating the nearby cities, starting with Rochester and Buffalo.

Considering it'd only been two weeks since the start of operations they were doing very well. Right now one of Jeanne's biggest worries was the promise she'd made to the Professor and she was sure he'd come to collect soon. He'd requested her assistance with his Oath of Crystal Tears and she'd told him she'd help if he showed her a test subject with at least a 98% chance of success. And he now had a subject sitting at 99.99% and all he needed was the cooperation of the subject, that of an angel and that of a demon. And she'd volunteered.

It wasn't as though she had an issue with what the Oath of Crystal Tears entailed. Her days as the Virgin of Orleans were long behind her. She didn't even mind the idea of doing it with Elaine, but... the thought of having Rachel Cypher, or Rahel the Temptress, in bed with them, was what made her nervous. How could she not feel self-conscious in the same bed as the woman for whom the word 'sex appeal' had been invented? Moreover, what would Rachel do if she found out that despite working for the Angel Lord of Chastity and Temperance, Jeanne actually quite liked sex, thank you very much?

She was shaken out of her musings when two of Elaine's teammates entered the armory.

Alexis and Ophelia were both interesting people. Alexis was proving to be everything Heaven had hoped humans would become during a crisis. She was smart, controlled, competent and optimistic. She was also terribly powerful and despite only gaining access to magic two weeks ago she was already one of the better light mages Jeanne had ever seen. Ophelia meanwhile? Jeanne had had a longer talk with the vampire where she had found her to be a shockingly compassionate woman, on top of being smart and resourceful. Even Rachel, one of the best healers Hell had to offer, was jealous of how well Ophelia's healing abilities worked, which told Jeanne everything she needed to know about just how powerful the vampire was.

“Can I help you?”, Jeanne asked them as they approached, then turned to look at Alexis. “How is that PSI device you bought? Did you find something out about it?”

Alexis broke eye contact almost immediately before she answered: “I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. It's not a black box, exactly, but I think I'll need to pick your brain about it soon.”

“Sure”, the angel said. “So I'm guessing you're here for something else then?”

Alexis exchanged a look with Ophelia and then nodded.

“Right”, Alexis said. “We're not really happy with our weapon selection and we were wondering if you had an idea of what we could take.”

Jeanne considered. “If I recall you have a shotgun and a sniper rifle, right?”

The two of them nodded at her and Jeanne considered for a while.

“Okay, I was going to withhold these weapons until people started reaching level ten but I've seen for myself that you're competent and trustworthy, so...” Jeanne poked a few buttons on her AR displays and a weapon cabinet slid out of a nearby wall. It held several futuristic-looking long guns that had Alexis all but drooling. “These are some weapons from Heaven. Not the current models, of course, but they're all really scary guns.”

About half of all great minds and scientists who died ended up in Heaven, where they were of course able to further their research and combine it with magical theory, which meant that Heaven was easily a century ahead of humanity when it came to technology. The guns she was allowed to sell at Base 15 weren't cutting edge but they were far more advanced than what the humans had managed to invent thus far.

Of course, most mundane problems could be solved by assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles but some Outsiders took far more punishment to put down, which made bigger sticks necessary.

“What are these?”, Alexis asked as she slowly walked over to the guns.

Jeanne put a hand on the topmost gun, which looked like a normal rifle with multiple bulky metal rings along its length. “This is a Jericho Pattern Coil Gun”, she explained and before she could say anything else Alexis rushed over and asked:

“You managed to make a working Coil Gun? And it's so tiny, too. This is so cool.”

Jeanne had to smile at her enthusiasm.

“What's a Coil Gun?”, Ophelia asked. “I'm not a tech nerd.”

“Right”, Alexis said. “So basically, these rings are powerful electromagnets. They can be turned on and off in rapid succession, so when you pull the trigger they accelerate the bullet by attracting it and then turning off. If the magnets are strong enough and they activate in quick enough succession you can get some pretty crazy speeds without any propulsion nonsense. But the issue is that it's hard to make them this small without them losing most of the acceleration. There's a company that makes them here on earth but they're more or less just home-spun toys, not powerful or accurate enough to qualify as weapons and looking a little ramshackle if I'm being honest. But this is a legitimate weaponized Coil Gun. It's amazing.” Alexis had started off at a reasonable pace but her voice had gotten faster and faster and Jeanne found her excitement kind of adorable.

“Yeah”, the angel said. “I don't know all the specifics but this weapon uses lightning magic to make the magnets supernaturally powerful and space magic so the small size is no longer an issue.”

“Wow”, Alexis said. “Can you show us?”

“Sure”, Jeanne said and pushed another AR button.

A wall slid down, revealing a shooting range, except not a normal shooting range. It was a blue force wall at the end of a long hallway.

“The force wall changes color depending on how hard you hit it”, Jeanne explained. “Green is lethal to unarmored humans, yellow is enough to go through conventional body armor. Red is what you'd get from a tank round and purple is... well, let's just say that you don't want to get hit by anything that can make a purple stain on that wall.”

Then she took the Coil Gun, loaded a metal ball into it and fired it at the force wall. There was a flash of electricity, then the metal ball was flung out of the gun at such speeds that even Ophelia with her far above human motion tracking couldn't follow it, and a fraction of a second later there was a whip crack of sound and a purple spot appeared on the force wall. As they watched the color slowly shifted to red, then to yellow, then to green, and finally back to blue.

“That was just a basic iron ball”, Jeanne said. “Cheap and easy to use, but as you can see highly effective. Now”, she said, pulling out another projectile, one that looked a little like a tiny dull metal golf ball. “This is special ammo. Tiny fragments of adamantium held together by electromagnetism. Once you fire them they fly for a few yards and then release into a cloud of metal splinters. The end result is remarkably similar to a shotgun blast, except with way more force. Watch.”

She loaded the projectile into the gun, pointed at the force wall and pulled the trigger. The same flash ensued but then a spread of metal pieces flew from the muzzle and hit an area the size of a beach ball on the force wall, which turned a dark orange in response.

“To put this into perspective”, Jeanne said, “a shotgun would have barely reached lime green at this range, maybe light orange at point blank.”

“I want that”, Alexis whispered.

“Don't say that yet”, Jeanne said. “Let me show you the rest. I'm sure I have something you'll be more interested in. In fact”, she looked at Ophelia, “I think the Coil Gun might be something for you. It's a little harder to aim than a proper sniper rifle but that shouldn't be a problem for you, right?”

Ophelia nodded, but didn't take the gun yet.

“Next up is this”, Jeanne said and presented a gun with something on the sides that looked like the coolers on a fridge. “A Gomorrah pattern heat rifle.”

She held the weapon by its grip in her right and the handle on top of the stock with her left, then pointed it downrange. It produced a red-hot beam that left dark red patterns in the force wall wherever it hit, radiating out into orange around the points of impact.

“Focused fire”, Jeanne explained, then cranked a dial on the side down and announced: “Spread fire.”

This time the gun didn't seem to fire anything at first until Alexis noticed a heat mirage that vaguely traveled outward from the gun's barrel. It was barely visible but the effect still painted orange blotches over most of the force wall.

“It's way stronger than it looks”, Jeanne said as she noticed Ophelia's dubious expression. “If you pointed this at a Thrall it'd pop like a pimple.”

“Cheery image”, the vampire commented and Jeanne shrugged, then put the gun away and pulled out another.

This weapon barely even looked like a gun. It had a stock and a barrel, certainly, but that was where the similarities ended. The whole thing was covered in a layer of black plastic and rubber that protected the electronic components beneath. It also had something that looked remarkably similar to a smartphone on top of where stock met barrel and in place of a magazine it had a battery pack.

“Gevurah pattern force rifle, probably my favorite gun ever conceived”, Jeanne explained. “The magazine is a mana battery. If you keep an empty one on your person it recharges whenever you use magic. Instead of casting proper spells you can also channel Winds directly into the battery pack to charge it much faster. The gun itself isn't so much a gun as it is a big PSI device that fires force magic constructs.”

She fiddled on the smartphone-like part for a bit and drew a circular shape on it with her fingertip, then tapped a few icons. When she was done she pointed the gun downrange and pulled the trigger. A barely visible circle of force magic that spun like a buzz-saw snapped into existence and launched itself at the force wall, carving into it with enough force to leave a dark orange stain.

“The bigger the projectile the more power it needs and thus the slower the rate of fire. If we pick a smaller projectile”, she said, then fiddled with the smartphone-like part until she had a knife shape ready to go, “we can make the gun fire very rapidly.” She demonstrated by firing those small knife shapes in rapid succession. “It's normally locked into semi-automatic mode but with particularly small shapes you can make it full auto.”

Then she turned to Alexis, who was all but drooling as she looked at the gun and smirked at the girl.

“See?”, Jeanne said. “I knew there was something you'd like more.”

“How do the shapes work?”, Alexis asked. “Do you need to draw them again each time? And how far does the magazine stretch?”

Jeanne smiled. “You can draw them at any time but you can also save a list of up to nine favorites. The magazine lasts for quite a while. To put this into perspective, everything I fired just now was six percent of the battery life.”

“Yeah, I want that”, Alexis said. “How much?”

Jeanne winced and said: “If you give me that shotgun back I can make it... one thousand five hundred Credits.”

“Done”, Alexis said. “We got a thousand each when Elaine gave those body parts to the Professor.”

“Alright”, Jeanne said, then turned to Ophelia. “What about you?”

“I'll take one of those coil guns”, the vampire said. “Me and fire don't get along.”

Technically that wasn't true. Vampires weren't weak to fire. They could be hurt by it, same as humans, certainly. And, yes, fire counteracted most forms of regeneration but aside from that fire didn't affect vampires any more negatively than any other type of damage. Ophelia didn't have a personal problem with fire, either. But she had run a few tests with her magic and confirmed that the flickering of fire made working with shadows far more annoying as it shifted them around unpredictably. And since one of her abilities allowed her to travel between shadows the last thing she wanted was for the shadows around her to become unpredictable.